Tag Archive for: hikikomori

The issue of social withdrawal among young people has been in focus of Japanese attention since the 1990s. From a western perspective, this complex psychological and social symptom – known as hikikomori, has often been explored and read as inherently Japanese. The rigidness of such conclusions is not just theoretically questionable, but it also generates a discourse on Japan as a place of unique, nationally determined, deviant behaviour. This paper offers a theoretical contextualization of the hikikomori phenomenon and additionally opens a debate on potential “immunity” of such community in the realm of a capitalist system, where productivity is established as an indisputable obligation.